Thierry Henry and Ellen Maggs

WHEN Ellen Maggs joined the Arsenal women’s team in 2000, not only did she not receive a wage but she had to pay all her own costs to play – from her boots to her football kit, to the yearly fee for taking part in competitions and training, known as “subs”.

That all changed, however, in 2001 when Vic Akers, the Arsenal Women’s coach and also the men’s team kit man at the time, convinced the male team to sponsor the female team.

Ms Maggs explained: “I think it was Patrick Vieira who was captain at the time and Vic basically just had a five minute conversation, saying, ‘Do you think that this is possible?’ Patrick Vieira was like ‘Yeah, absolutely. Let’s get it done’. And that happened ever since.”

Arsenal was the first club to introduce the practice with many other clubs following suit.

“It was absolutely massive at that time that [the women] didn’t have to pay subs,” Ms Maggs said.

“Arsenal were the first club to say ‘No, we’ll take that away and the men are going to pay for it’.”

During her time at Arsenal, her “sponsor” turned out to be club icon, Thierry Henry, and they met a handful of times. On one occasion, when she was around 18, they posed for photos together and shared a joke.

She said: “It was my very first England cap. I played against France and obviously Thierry Henry is French – so we had a photo shoot where he had his French flag, and I had my England flag.”

She said while the women at the time were “very, very grateful” they didn’t have to pay to play football and they “got the nice coaches to and from games,” it would be unthinkable if that set-up was still the case now.

In her final season for Arsenal she said the players received £50 a game, but Ms Maggs was forced to give up her footballing dream at just 22 when she wasn’t able to pay her mortgage and continue playing football.

The women’s game has progressed since then and some women’s matches are now played to large crowds at the Emirates.

In the 2021-22 season, Arsenal Women’s £4.3m wage bill was spread across 44 playing and non-playing staff, up from £2.6m across 35 staff the year before.

But it’s still world’s away from the men’s team, which had a total wage bill in excess of £220m that season, according to Deloitte.